Sven is so eloquent that I want to believe whatever he says simply because I want to be in alignment with such exquisite grace. When reading him I crave that sense of wholeness he claims he gets from books. Who would not? But when I examine my own response to reading, I can’t find Sven’s zen.

On first reading his posting, it seems as if Birkerts is arguing for the exceptionalism of reading, wherein all goodness resides. But he then breaks down that distinction by correctly reminding us that we do indeed read on the internet. Well then, maybe greatness lies not in reading per se but in books. Here again, the problem is that reading books online is not that uncommon. I read many books in PDF form now. And I read many parts of non-fiction books on my computer without noticing I have gone from a web page to a book page. Books are part of the web.

What about the Kindle? When you are reading a book on the Kindle, how is that any different than reading it on the web? Or from reading a paperback?

Well, says Sven, than what we are talking about is the web versus novels. Umm, make that good novels. Strong, timeless stories. So in fact the argument of web vs book is really about web vs great story.
I think this greatly clarifies the argument.

Do great stories have the ability to transport us to a different place than the web? Maybe. Is this place which Sven incorrectly calls the “reading space” not the same as cyberspace? It may not be. Can you get there if you listen to a great book? I believe so. Do you get there if you watch a great movie? Probably.

I see now that part of the disconnect Birkerts and I have had is that Sven has been talking about books and reading when he was really talking about literature — which is probably not bound to books and reading. Since most of the books and reading I do is not literature, I could not figure out what he was talking about.

Birkerts says: “My core premise is that cyberspace and reading-space are opposed conditions of sentience.” I now understand this to be “cyberspace and literature-space are opposed conditions of sentience.” I find this an easier notion to find evidence for (or against).

Stories are so hardwired into our subconscious that it would not surprise me if we did indeed inhabit a story-space that is different from our web-based reading-space. This is a testable proposition. Do our brains work differently when we are in the middle of a story versus when we are in the middle of web surfing? I would be astounded if they were the same. But if that was all the happened — different strokes for stories than for links, then the solution is easy — just read, listen, or watch more stories.

But to return to Nick Carr’s proposition. His claim — as far as I understand it — is that surfing the web outside of this literature-space not only alters our brain during that time but somehow unwires the hard wiring we have for stories, so that later on we are unable to re-enter that literature-space as easily.

While I understand the worry, and I hear the anecdotes, I believe now is the time to trot out the evidence. So far I have not seen a shred of scientific evidence that such a change has happened. Or even could happen.

My challenge to Carr and Birkerts is to propose a definition of what you are talking about sufficiently precise that it could be falsiably tested.